1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid power generation apparatus that utilizes a liquid such as water and generates electricity and to a liquid power generation system using this apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A water receiving tank is connected to a balancer through a belt, an intermediate portion of the belt is hoisted by a pulley, and the pulley is disposed to a rotary shaft of a generator. Further, when the water receiving tank is placed at an upper position, water is injected from the water tank through a volume regulating faucet. As a result, a weight of the water receiving tank exceeds that of the balancer, the water receiving tank is heavier than the balancer, and hence the water receiving tank is moved down. When the water receiving tank reaches the ground, a projection provided on a lower surface of a lid constituting a bottom of the water receiving tank is pushed upward. As a result, since the water in the water receiving tank is discharged and the weight of the water receiving tank is reduced, the weight of the balancer is larger, and hence the water receiving tank is pulled up and restored to its original state. The above-described operations are repeated. The upward and downward movements of the water receiving tank enable the belt to rotate the pulley, and hence the generator is driven and can generate electricity.
In the above-described configuration, when a second water receiving tank is used in place of the balancer and the water is alternately injected into the two water receiving tanks through the volume regulating faucet, the electricity can be also generated during the upward movement as well as the downward movement of each water receiving tank.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-090470
Patent Document 2: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-256830
However, in any conventional technology mentioned above, in order to obtain a necessary number of revolutions of the pulley and a necessary generating time, a moving distance of the water receiving tank must be set to a height of, e.g., 10 m, and hence a size of the apparatus is increased. Therefore, an installing place is limited, and an electricity generating capacity to be obtained is small with respect to an increase in size of the apparatus.
Furthermore, in order to generate electricity during the upward movement following the downward movement of the water receiving tank, the two water tanks must be distributed and disposed at both ends of the belt, and the water must be alternately injected. In this regard, an increase in size of the apparatus is also encouraged, and an installing place is limited.
Furthermore, since a movable portion is exposed to the outside, not only the apparatus cannot be installed at a position that a person can approach, but also noise during operations can be a problem, and carriage, assembling, and installation are apt to bring difficulties.